Anti-Israel Lawsuit Dismissed on Preliminary Motion
- ALCCA Staff
- May 4
- 2 min read
Updated: May 6
ALCCA’s Chair, Mark Sandler reviews a recent court decision dismissing an anti-Israel lawsuit against the Canadian government on a preliminary motion, finding the claims unsuitable for adjudication by Canadian courts:
Several days ago, a judge of the Superior Court of Justice dismissed a legal action against the Canadian government. The plaintiffs sought judicial declarations said to arise from Canada’s purported failure to prevent Israel from committing an alleged genocide in Gaza. The plaintiffs also alleged that Canada’s policies were infused with anti-Palestinian racism, including the eligibility criteria under Canada’s visa program for Palestinians in Gaza, when compared with those of the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel.
On behalf of Canada, the Attorney General argued that the legal action should be “struck” on a preliminary motion without a trial being conducted because it disclosed no reasonable cause of action – in other words, no basis upon which it could ever succeed. The court agreed. The legal action raised issues that fall within the exclusive domain of the executive branch of government and were demonstrably unsuitable for adjudication by Canadian domestic courts.
The court also noted that differences between two discretionary immigration policies (relating to Gazans and Ukrainians) were unlikely to provide a proper basis for claiming a violation of equality rights under s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In any event, immigration policy is a matter clearly outside the court’s jurisdiction.
The court also accepted Canada’s contention that the plaintiff’s 110-page statement of claim contained many passages that were irrelevant, contained improperly pleaded evidence or bald conclusions of law or were overly argumentative or prejudicial. The court noted that the statement of claim included long accounts of historical events that were not even related to any of the pleaded causes of action or any of the relief sought by the plaintiffs. In other words, the claim was loaded with patently irrelevant and prejudicial content.
The statement of claim’s reliance, ultimately unsuccessful, on allegations of anti-Palestinian racism – this time against the federal government – reinforces the dangers associated with this term. The term is most frequently defined to label as racist anyone who disputes Palestinian narratives about Israel’s creation or fails to acknowledge that the entirety of Israel represents occupied lands.
Moreover, the effort to invoke anti-Palestinian racism to attack legitimate national security distinctions between Gazans and Ukrainians seeking entry to Canada was entirely without merit.
See El Batnigi v. Attorney General of Canada, 2026 ONSC 2513 (CanLII).
-30-